To feel terrified by the idea of time going on forever

This is exactly how I feel.

They weren't anywhere, they didn't exist in any form so they had no thoughts or ideas.
Hopefully the same is true after we die, if there's an afterlife I'll be properly pissed off.

I sometimes wonder if we have lived before ?
A very young child in our family ( English) was in the back seat of the family car

He started to become very anxious as we were driving in South Wales- I asked him what was wrong

He said “ I don’t like mountains ~ when I was little, a mountain fell on my school “

( He wasn’t attending school when he said it, as too young)

No internet then.

There was a Disaster ( Aberfan) - but that had happened decades before he was born.

It was very strange- He’s an adult now and can’t remember that journey.

I think heaven would exist outside of time and space, like God would have to, so it wouldn't be part of time at all.

In a similar vein, I get freaked out by the concept of infinity. That the universe has no end, ever. What was there before the galaxies? If it was just a void then that void must have been something. It's all too much!

Personally, I don't believe in an afterlife and I'm not at all religious. I believe when you're dead, you cease to exist completely. I can understand why some people find that notion very sad and upsetting, but I find it more comforting than the idea of existence forever. I find the thought of 'knowing' you are dying upsetting and frightening but not the state of being dead – it's just like before birth, which was nothing. And for me, that's the way it should be – I don't see what meaning forever has. I find far more meaning in that people are only here for a finite time.

It's completely up to you what you want to believe, but I think you might find it helpful to start thinking about 'time' in a different way if you find the notion of endless time frightening. Time, as we know it at least, is a human concept, based on a linked series of events, the progression of past into the future. Human memory formation is really the only basis for the conception of time. It might be helpful to think of time as something that is not experienced in that way after life. You don't 'know' how it is experienced differently, but do you have to know? Can't it just be unknown? Or not knowable? If you believe in a plane above the existence of the living – which is quite fantastical – then I think it stands to reason that their can be some re-imagining of the concept of what you think of as time too. Otherwise it's just all very literal, isn't it.

I find it much more comforting to think that after death, the lights just go out and that is it. If you are of a religious disposition, it opens all sorts of terrifying thoughts. Like your loved one being stuck in limbo or somewhere other than "heaven".

When I try and talk to dh about this stuff he is at a loss and just says "don't worry it'll be a long time before any of us dies" and reminds me to take my iron supplements.

He's right, of course. I wish I could just not worry about any of it, like he does

We will be a different type of being in heaven. We won't be aware of such things, as heaven is where we're meant to be and it will be our norm - or something like that☺

And yes, I'm also very bewildered at the thought that my children didn't exist at all 5 years ago. Where were "they" then? Where were their thoughts and ideas, did they grow out of nothing?

It upsets and worries me, I try not to think about it.

Me too, it jolts me awake at night. I find it really unbearable.

After my dc1 was born I got a bit obsessed with death and this feeling that, what's the point of loving someone because you'll just die eventually. (Turned out I was very very anemic which was making me depressed - also was a bit traumatised by having had sepsis.)

But it still gives me shudders when I think about it, so I try not to.

For example, atm dc1 is learning how to read, phonics etc. This thought sometimes pops into my mind: why bother learning stuff and taking on new ideas if you're going to die anyway and those thoughts and ideas will just cease to exist?!

I suppress the thought whenever it appears but it's upsetting and I don't have the answer

@Lavenderfarmcottage As a child ( 5 or 6) this used to really give me a strange feeling
“ space never ends”
As ti Heaven or some other plane of existence, it would be wonderful-
But we have been “ Unalive” before we were born.

I like to think my loved ones who are deceased ( Humans and animals) are waiting.

Even though it’s unscientific to think that way.

Me too.

It's like the time before you were born - you won't have been aware of any of it .

It’s interesting because I come at it from the opposite point of view (that there isn’t a heaven or an afterlife and so we just die and there is nothing and that’s it forever. It terrifies me) Sometimes the thought of it jolts me awake when I’m half asleep and makes my heart race.

But yes, the thought of time going on forever is also really unsettling. So I don’t think there is a happy solution for me 😂

I actually threw an absolute tantrum aged about 4 when my mum was explaining heaven and that it just kept going and going … I can still remember it!

❤️

This

I love this!

If you like light hearted American comedy, then The Good Place covers this exact topic. It's a bit of a piss take but it's the only way for us agnostics and atheists to understand what others believe.

Interesting. Would that be The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier?

I like to believe that our time on earth is purely to have a human experience, a physical body and free will to make decisions good or bad and to experience human emotions. Sort of like a period of ‘education’ for the spirit I suppose much like a small part of human life is usually spent early on in some kind of school / education .